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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071855">a flash of memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedSong/pseuds/WickedSong'>WickedSong</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VIII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, During Canon, Gen, Possession, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:47:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedSong/pseuds/WickedSong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>no, no, please!</em>
  <br/>
  <strong>i will make them bleed!</strong>
</p><p>Thirteen years ago, Edea Kramer watched them, as they waited for their 'Sis' to come home. Now, she's the enemy they're determined to defeat.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Irvine Kinneas &amp; Edea Kramer, Irvine Kinneas &amp; Selphie Tilmitt, Irvine Kinneas &amp; Squall Leonhart, Squall Leonhart &amp; Edea Kramer, Squall Leonhart &amp; Ellone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a flash of memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>-Idk what this is. I'm replaying (AGAIN, I know), and I just finished this section of the game. And everytime I play this game, I just think of MORE things I'd love to know more about, kinda like how Edea feels during Ultimecia's possession; especially in the times when she's forced to fight the children she raised.</p><p>-Which is where this came from. I don't know if it makes much sense; it started off as kind of a ramble, and then escalated from there.</p><p>-But somehow still managed to be a ramble.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Come on, Squall! Quisty and Zell are waiting for us!”</p><p>“Not today. I have to wait for Sis.”</p><p>Edea watches, somewhat concerned, as Squall ignored Irvine’s plea for the third day in the row. Ever since Ellone left, she’d watched him keep vigil in front of the old stone house, waiting for her to come home. He’d only moved when Edea coaxed him in for lunch and dinner. When he fell asleep, Cid would carry him to his bed.</p><p>It was predictable what would happen next. Irvine would stomp his foot, Selphie – ever by Irvine’s side – would call Squall a meanie, and the pair would walk away, leaving Squall to brood on his lonesome.</p><p>Edea couldn’t blame the young boy. Ellone was the only family he ever knew; she was Sis to everyone, but, as far as Edea understood from what she’d heard from the people of Winhill, when they’d first been brought into the care of the orphanage, Ellone was his <em>sister</em>.</p><p>Adoptive or not, it hardly mattered.</p><p>Ellone had a remarkable ability – perhaps linked to the gifts that forced her onto the White SeeD ship – to calm Squall, with stories of his mother and father; Raine and Uncle Laguna. They were clearly people the young girl loved and missed dearly.</p><p>But Ellone’s safety outweighed the comfort she could bring to Squall.</p><p>Edea knew that that responsibility fell to her and Cid now.</p><p>Edea stood from the step she watched from, waiting for Irvine and Selphie to come running past her, and back into the house. They’d play the rest of the day away, not quite understanding why Squall didn’t want to join them.</p><p>Edea was surprised, then, when only Selphie passed her.</p><p>“What’s Irvine doing?” Edea asked, softly, as the young girl stopped at her side, and they both looked at the pair. Irvine was now sitting on the ground, next to Squall.</p><p>Selphie shrugged.</p><p>“Doesn’t want to play,” she said.</p><p>Edea smiled down at her, patting her head, and sending her indoors to her no-doubt rambunctious running about. Edea knew, before the day was out, either she or Cid would be patching up a scrape or bruise Selphie had managed to inflict upon herself.</p><p>Once Selphie was inside, Edea turned back around to the boys, who watched the afternoon sun. She walked towards them.</p><p>“And what are you boys up to?”</p><p>Squall kept his eyes on the sea, but Irvine turned around, and smiled; his usual toothy grin that, for a child who had lost so much in his early life, was reassuring for Edea to see.</p><p>“I’m waiting with Squall,” he said, proudly. “Until Sis comes back.”</p><p>Edea was taken aback by his sincerity, but also troubled by her own knowledge.</p><p>Sis – Ellone – wouldn’t be coming back, not for a while, anyway.</p><p>Instead of letting that show, she smiled, as best as she could.</p><p>“Well, that’s very kind of you, Irvine.”</p><p>
  <em>13 years later</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The flash of memory caught her off-guard, as the boy in the black jacket took a swing at her with his sword. <em>A gunblade</em>, she thought.</p><p>But how did she know <em>that</em>?</p><p>She erected a barrier, between them, and the blow was deflected. The boy, with the scar that mirrored her knight’s, stumbled backwards. The boy beside him, the one with the shotgun and the mustard-coloured jacket, muttered a curative spell his way.</p><p>A grunt of thanks passed between the two young men, and it caught the Sorceress unaware again. Edea, the Sorceress whose body she controlled, was fighting against her, though Ultimecia wasn’t entirely sure why. The sniper’s grin, and the stoic look in the cold grey eyes of the other young man, and she’d been rendered all but immobile, but only for a second.</p><p>
  <em>please don’t make me hurt them.</em>
</p><p>Momentarily stunned, Ultimecia didn’t notice the spell cast her way by the girl in the light blue duster and could do nothing to block it; the force blowing her backwards. It was enough that the other two could continue their torrent of attacks upon her.</p><p>She wouldn’t be able to fight them much longer, not with Edea holding her back, as well. If they were able to overpower her, she wouldn’t be able to keep a hold of this vessel much longer.</p><p>There was only one way to stop them.</p><p>“Impudent SeeDs!”</p><p>With a burst of magic, she threw the trio back, far enough, that she could regain her senses.</p><p>
  <em>no, no, please!</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>i will make them bleed!</strong>
</p><p>It would take three shards.</p><p>One for the girl with an innate magical prowess Ultimecia found intriguing, for the sniper who tried to assassinate her in such a cowardly manner, and the swordsman who had felled her knight first.</p><p>The girl saw the shards first; turning to avoid the one aimed at her; the sniper too, managed to avoid the ice that would pierce his heart, by virtue of losing his balance.</p><p>Only the third shard connected. The girl screamed, but the sound was drowned out, to Ultimecia, by the shriek of rage, and pain, that echoed within her vessel.</p><p>
  <em>not squall!</em>
</p><p>Ultimecia relished the pain in Edea’s soul, and she finally understood the connection; the thread that bound these pitiful SeeDs, and the Sorceress she had under her lull, together.</p><p>The two boys – they were her children, children in all but blood.</p><p>Two boys who knew Ellone and might have an inkling of her location with the White SeeD. Two boys who had once watched a summer sky set, in the hope that they might see her again.</p><p>“This is an unexpected boon,” Ultimecia muttered, as she watched the soldiers swoop in around her, and apprehend the SeeDs. She looked down at her prone Knight; he was one of them, too, but she knew that much already, courtesy of Edea, even if he didn’t quite remember.</p><p>Yet.</p><p>Ultimecia flexed her outstretched hand, as she brought it down to her side. She brought one hand up to her eye and felt the single tear that Edea – pitiful and weak Edea – had shed, on behalf of those she’d raised, once upon a time.</p><p>
  <em>i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>-I can't remember if it's ever stated in the game how old Squall was when Ellone left (and maybe I'll find out in this playthrough), but I settled on the age of 4 just because.</p><p>-Please let me know what you think! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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